Halloweened Zombies...

Face and Mask (Acrylic on paper)

Most observe halloween,

everday.  All life.

Mask over mask, as colors and sheen

buttress overlays. All life.

The true face lost,

smothered to silence. All life.

The con self left to accost

a pathetic zombie. All life.

The Mask maker's boutique...

Mark that shack

veneered as a palace.

A mysterious one-track

byway from human race.

The weather-cock atop

in a fickle spin

welcomes to the shop

of a thousand twins.

Within-

A cornucopia of dissonant hoods

hung on every nail that could.

Consorting where they should,

the flesh, festoons, fragrance and flora;

feathers, flavours and flamboyant aura.

Not a mirror

or a façade familiar.

Not a repeat face

in that assortment somewhere.

Espouse your choice,

the medley is yours.

Just

veil the eyes

and gag that voice;

the hood stays on for years.

Waxing in tiers; aging

to a flaking paint

on an aching core.  

Unrestored, you scar;

adrift, on the other shore.

In search of self

delving the shelves;

still helplessly shopping

at the mask maker’s store!

Bonds

A mere tether dares to hold Me

 to myself.

A  tug, flip and yank,

am sure to come free!

Hours, weeks and years since, and it is gone!

Now grows there a banyan tree

its multitude roots richly spawn

from that sole sinuous shackle!

Multiplies self over and over;

myself and mine, myself and mine.

Never  the boundless Me...

(Acrylic abstract on paper)

                                                            

Putting Muse on back-foot!

Muse...(Pastels on paper)

The fancy muse is fickle and fussy;

autocratic and greedy. Robbing

hours from glorious mid-mornings to

romantic nights, day after day!

The less fancy muse consorts

an a-social, eccentric bard.

But I can ill-afford either.

So a carefree giggle, an unshed tear;

a news-paper tidbit, a curious gesture

stealthily snuggle into my grey cells.

Tether in remote niches as neuronal connections,

hibernating as restless vesicles of chemical neuro-transmitters.

And then tumble out during stolen hours

of my time-strapped life-at midnight or at day break...

On to the nascent paper or the computer screen

Even as the muse plays truant

with a million other writers!

The muse is a coquettish spider,

weaving that gossamer web;

delights in snaring writers in blocks

time and again.

But no, not me.

We live exclusive lives.

I’m free.   She begs for my summons.

As I romance papers, pens, colors and the WWW,

I put that spider out into a no-exit maze!

No dreams, only lullabies...!

One-celled… eight-celled… morulla…blastocyst…

at last I wiggle into the warm womb.

Waiting, growing, floating atwist-

a little of dad’s and a little of mom’s chromosomes.

Impatient, forty stretching weeks

of thrilling daily self-discoveries!

The limb buds tweak, a ‘Hurrah’squeaks

as I’m put together loving piece by piece.

I dream of happy morrows,

lulling in and out of sleep…

One ecstatic instant, I surely know

I’m a little woman, a beauty in keep!

Blessed to live, blessed to birth,

blessed to light the earth and hearth.

A flowering flower, a breed to breed…

Life, I love you…let me…I implead!

Come tomorrow, I shall-

                                           

                        She never did see any tomorrow…She died… A sixteen-week old, dreaming fetus …still in the womb. She was killed…for she was a girl-in-making…

It pays to lie!

There is truth in this: It pays to lie.

For:

Being  truthful is a costly affair!

How often have I paid -in tears, sighs, banknotes and kind;

only to learn  that a lie was a lot less grind...

For:

Lies have shades-half, quarter, white and grey;

Truth is dark even by day!

People love colours, love to live lying and live lied to...

For:

Living

a life of lies is much less of a yoke

than

Dying

in an eternity of penalizing  truths!   

Truth finder (pastels on canvas)

Illumination

The day breaks.

Life begins to brew

its karmic concoctions

in spicy double takes.

Slivers of streaming sunlight

refresh a haunting face.

“Just ignore that unbidden clue,

Life is a teasing malaise.”

The swishing silk and tinkling bangles

mock and laugh in abandon;

blow a dying ember to life...

“Omens, please be gone!”

What can come of nothing far?

But the kiln is warming up too...

to Time’s imprudent athyachar.

It hots up fast;

the sun above, the kiln before;

And then there is one

 within,

fast singing through....

No more running.

The  runaway has

hit a dead end too.

Life lurches,

 its Cocktail a-pour...

Suddenly,

there is someone at the door.

Only now,

it isn’t a stranger

but someone I have known ever before!